Book 3
Hellenistic Cicero, Marcus Tullius Latin. . .
. . . and to vehicles against slowness; and the same Reason, when it had received men uttering something inchoate and confused in unshaped voices, broke these up and distinguished them into parts, and, as it were tokens, stamped words upon things, and bound together by the most delightful bond of speech men who before had been disjoined. By a like exercise of mind, the sounds of the voice, which seemed infinite, were all marked and expressed by the finding of a few signs, whereby both conversations with the absent, and the tokens of men's wills, and the records of things past might be kept. To this was added number, a thing both necessary to life and, alone, unchangeable and eternal; which first impelled us also to look up to the sky, and not in vain to gaze upon the motions of the stars, and by the reckonings of nights and of days . . .
. . . whose minds raised themselves higher and were able to do or to devise something worthy of the gift, as I said before, of the gods. Wherefore let those men who discourse of the principle of living be for us great men, as they are, let them be learned, let them be masters of truth and virtue—provided only there be this thing, whether discovered by men engaged in the variety of public affairs, or also handled in the leisure and writings of those others, a thing, as it is, by no means to be despised: the civil principle and the discipline of peoples, which, in good natures, accomplishes what it has already very often accomplished, that an incredible and well-nigh divine virtue should arise.
But if anyone has thought that to those instruments of the mind which he held both by nature and by civil institutions, there should be joined for himself also learning and a fuller knowledge of things—as do those very men who are engaged in the discussion of these books—there is no one but ought to set them before all others. For what can be more splendid than when the handling and the practice of great affairs is joined with the studies and knowledge of those arts? Or what more perfect can be conceived than Publius Scipio, than Gaius Laelius, than Lucius Philus? who, that they might leave out nothing which pertains to the highest praise of illustrious men, joined to the manner of their home and their ancestors this learning too, brought in from Socrates.
Wherefore he who both wished and was able to do both—that is, to furnish himself both with the institutions of his ancestors and with learning—him I reckon to have attained everything that belongs to praise. But if one or the other of two ways of prudence must be chosen, yet, even though that quiet manner of life amid the best studies and arts will seem to some the happier, this civil life is assuredly the more praiseworthy and the more illustrious, by which life the highest men are so adorned, as either Manius Curius, 'Whom no one could surpass by steel or gold,' or . . .
. . . to have been wisdom; yet there was this difference in the principle of each kind, that those nourished the first principles of nature by words and arts, while these did so by institutions and laws. But this one state of ours has produced more such men—if fewer wise men, since they hold that name so strictly, yet surely men worthy of the highest praise, since they cultivated the precepts and discoveries of the wise. And further, of how many states are there that are to be praised, and that have been—since this is in the nature of things by far the greatest task of counsel, to establish a commonwealth that may be lasting—if we count single men into single states, what a multitude of excellent men is even now found! And if we should wish to survey in mind either the Latium of Italy, or its Sabine or Volscian people, if Samnium, if Etruria, if that great Greece, if then the Assyrians, if the Persians, if the Carthaginians, if these . . .
. . . And Philus: "A splendid cause indeed you bring to me, when you wish me to undertake the advocacy of wickedness." "And yet you must beware," said Laelius, "that, if you say those things which are wont to be said against justice, you may seem even to think so—you who are yourself, as it were, the one example of ancient probity and good faith, and whose habit of arguing on the contrary sides is not unknown, since you think the truth is thus most easily found." And Philus: "Well then," he said, "I will humour you, and bedaub myself knowingly; since those who seek gold do not think this should be refused them, surely we, when we seek justice, a thing far dearer than all gold, ought to flee no trouble. And would that, as I am about to use another's speech, so it were permitted me to use another's mouth! Now those things must be said by Lucius Furius Philus which Carneades, a Greek and accustomed to whatever was convenient, used to argue in words . . .
[Nonius, 263M] . . . that you may answer Carneades, who is wont often to make sport of the best causes by the trickery of his wit.
[Nonius, 373M] . . . Justice looks outward, and is wholly projected and stands forth.
. . . both to find and to guard it; while the other filled four full and large books about justice itself. For from Chrysippus I looked for nothing great or magnificent, who speaks in a certain manner of his own, so as to weigh everything by the niceties of words, not by the weight of things. It was the part of those heroes to rouse up that virtue—which is one, if indeed it exists—most bountiful and liberal, and which loves all rather than itself, born for others rather than for itself, lying prostrate, and to place it on that divine throne not far from wisdom.
Nor indeed did those men lack either will (for what other cause of writing, or what design at all, had they?) or genius, by which they surpassed all; but their cause overcame both their will and their abundance. For the right of which we inquire is something civil, none of it natural; for if it were natural, then, as hot and cold, as bitter and sweet, so would just and unjust be the same for all.
But now, if anyone could—in that chariot of Pacuvius, 'borne by winged serpents'—look down upon and survey with his eyes many and varied peoples and cities, he would see, first among that most uncorrupted people of the Egyptians, who keep in writing the memory of very many ages and events, that a certain ox is held a god, whom the Egyptians call Apis, and many other portents among them, and beasts of every kind consecrated in the number of the gods; then, in Greece, as among ourselves, magnificent shrines consecrated with human images, which the Persians held abominable; and for that one cause Xerxes is said to have ordered the temples of the Athenians to be set on fire, because he reckoned it a sin that the gods, whose house was this whole universe, should be shut up and confined within walls.
But afterward both Philip, who planned it, and Alexander, who waged it, brought this cause of war against the Persians, that he wished to punish them for the shrines of Greece; which the Greeks thought ought not even to be repaired, that there might be before the eyes of posterity an everlasting witness of the crime of the Persians. How many—as the Tauri in the Black Sea, as the king of Egypt Busiris, as the Gauls, as the Carthaginians—reckoned it both pious and most pleasing to the immortal gods to sacrifice men! And the institutions of life differ so much that the Cretans and the Aetolians think brigandage honourable, the Lacedaemonians used to claim that all the fields were theirs which they could reach with a spear. The Athenians too were wont even to swear publicly that all the land was theirs which bore the olive or corn; the Gauls reckon it base to seek grain by hand, and so, armed, they reap others' fields;
but we, most just of men, who do not allow the peoples beyond the Alps to plant the olive and the vine, that our own olive-groves and vineyards may be worth more—which, since we do it, we are said to do prudently, but not justly, that you may understand wisdom to be at variance with fairness. And Lycurgus, that inventor of the best laws and of most equal right, gave the fields of the wealthy to the plebs to be cultivated as slaves.
But if I should wish to describe the kinds of right, of institutions, of manners and customs, I should show them not only varied among so many peoples, but in one city—even in this very one—a thousand times changed; so that this our interpreter of the law, Manilius, now says that the rights concerning the bequests and inheritances of women are other than he used, as a young man, to declare them, before the Voconian law was passed; which law itself, proposed for the sake of the advantage of men, is full of injustice toward women. For why should a woman not have money? Why may there be an heir to a Vestal virgin, but not to her own mother? Why, moreover, if a limit of money had to be set for women, might the daughter of Publius Crassus, if she were her father's only child, possess a hundred million in accordance with the law, while my own daughter might not possess three million . . .
. . . had sanctioned rights for us, and all men used the same, nor did the same men use different ones at different times. But I ask: if it is the part of a just man and of a good man to obey the laws, which laws? all whatsoever they shall be? But virtue admits no inconstancy, nature suffers no variety; and laws are approved by penalty, not by our justice. Natural right, then, has nothing; from which it follows that not even the just are just by nature. Or do they say that there is variety in laws, but that by nature good men follow that justice which is, not that which is reputed? For it is the part of a good and just man to render to each what is worthy of him.
What then shall we first assign to dumb beasts? For not mean men, but the greatest and most learned, Pythagoras and Empedocles, proclaim that there is one condition of right for all living things, and cry that inexpiable penalties hang over those by whom an animal has been wronged. It is a crime, then, to harm a beast; which crime he who would . . .
. . . For all who have the power of life and death over the people are tyrants, but they prefer to be called kings, by the name of Jupiter Best. But when certain men hold the commonwealth on account of riches or birth or some resources, it is a faction, but they are called the best men. And if the people has the most power and all things are ruled by its will, that is called liberty, but it is in truth licence. But when one fears another—man fears man, and order fears order—then, because no one trusts in himself, there comes about, as it were, a compact between the people and the powerful; whence arises that which Scipio praised, the conjoined kind of state; for of justice neither nature nor will, but weakness, is the mother. For when of three things one must be chosen—either to do wrong and not to suffer it, or both to do and to suffer it, or neither—the best is to do wrong, if you can with impunity; the second, neither to do nor to suffer it; the most wretched, ever to fight it out in both doing and suffering wrongs. Thus he who first attains that . . .
24fr. [Nonius, 125M, 318M, 534M] For when it was asked of him by what wickedness he was driven to infest the sea with a single pirate-ship, "By the same," he said, "as you the whole world."
. . . all . . . wholly. Wisdom bids us increase our resources, enlarge our riches, extend our borders (for whence else would come that praise carved on the monuments of the greatest commanders, 'he extended the borders of the empire,' had not something been added from another's?), command as many as possible, enjoy pleasures, be strong, reign, be lord. But justice instructs us to spare all, to take thought for the race of men, to render to each his own, not to touch what is sacred, public, or another's. What then is brought about, if you obey wisdom? Riches, powers, resources, honours, commands, kingdoms, whether for private men or for peoples. But since we are speaking of the commonwealth, those things are more illustrious which are done publicly, and since the principle of right is the same in both, I think we must speak of the wisdom of a people. To pass over others now, this people of ours, whom Africanus in yesterday's discourse traced from its root, by whose command now the whole world is held—was it by justice or by wisdom that, from the smallest of all, it became the greatest? . . .
. . . except the Arcadians and the Athenians, who, fearing, I suppose, lest this interdict of justice should at any time arise, feigned that they had sprung from the earth, like field-mice out of the fields.
To these things the following are wont to be said, first by those who are by no means bad at arguing, and who in this cause have the more authority because, when the inquiry is about a good man, whom we wish to be open and simple, they are not in disputing crafty, not veterans in cunning, not malicious: for they deny that the wise man is a good man for this reason, that goodness and justice delight him of their own accord and through themselves, but because the life of good men is empty of fear, care, anxiety, danger, while in the minds of the wicked, on the contrary, there ever clings some scruple, ever before their eyes are set judgments and punishments; and that there is no profit, no reward gained by injustice so great, that you should ever fear, ever think that some penalty is at hand, ever think it impends, with losses . . .
27fr. [Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 5.12.5] I ask: if there be two men, of whom the one is a most excellent man, most fair, of the highest justice, of singular good faith, the other of notable wickedness and audacity; and if the state be in such error that it thinks that good man wicked, criminal, abominable, but, on the contrary, thinks him who is most depraved to be of the highest probity and good faith; and if, in accordance with this opinion of all the citizens, that good man be harried, dragged off, hands at last laid upon him, his eyes dug out, condemned, bound, burned, banished, made destitute,
and finally, even with the best of right, seem to all most wretched; while, on the contrary, that wicked man be praised, courted, loved by all, all honours, all commands, all resources, all means from every side heaped upon him, and in short be judged, in the estimation of all, the best of men and most worthy of every best fortune—who, pray, will be so mad as to doubt which of the two he would rather be?
What is true of single men is true of peoples: there is no state so foolish that it would not rather command unjustly than serve justly. Nor indeed will I go far afield. As consul, I inquired—when you were in my council—about the Numantine treaty. Who did not know that Quintus Pompeius had made a treaty, that Mancinus was in the same case? The one, an excellent man, even urged my proposal, which I brought from a decree of the senate; the other defended himself most keenly. If modesty be sought, if probity, if good faith, these Mancinus brought; if reason, counsel, prudence, Pompeius stands first. Which . . .
[Gellius, Attic Nights, 1.22.8] I should not be reluctant, Laelius, did I not think both that these men wish it and that I myself desire that you too should touch upon some part of this our discourse, especially since yesterday you yourself said that you would even be left over for us. But that indeed cannot be; do not fail us—we all ask you.
[Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 6.8.6] There is indeed a true law, right reason, agreeing with nature, diffused among all, constant, everlasting, which calls to duty by commanding, and deters from fraud by forbidding; which yet neither commands nor forbids the good in vain, nor moves the wicked by commanding or forbidding. To this law it is not lawful to make amendments, nor is it permitted to repeal any part of it, nor can it be wholly abolished; nor indeed can we be released from this law either by the senate or by the people; nor is any explainer or interpreter of it to be sought besides; nor will there be one law at Rome, another at Athens, one now, another hereafter, but one and the same law, everlasting and unchangeable, will bind all nations and at all times; and there will be one common, as it were, master and ruler of all, God, the author of this law, its arbiter, its proposer; whom he who does not obey will flee from himself, and, having scorned the nature of man, will by this very thing suffer the greatest penalties, even if he escape the other punishments that are thought such.
34fr. [Augustine, City of God, 22.6] . . . that no war be undertaken by the best state save either for good faith or for safety.
- But from these penalties which even the most foolish feel—want, exile, chains, scourgings—private men often escape by the offered swiftness of death; but to states death itself is the penalty which seems to deliver single men from penalty; for a state ought to be so constituted as to be eternal. And so there is no natural destruction of a commonwealth, as there is of a man, in whom death is not only necessary but very often even to be wished for. But when a state is taken away, destroyed, extinguished, it is in some sort like—to compare small things with great—as if this whole universe should perish and fall to pieces.
35afr. [Isidore, Origins, 18.1.2sq.] Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without cause. For no war can be waged justly save for the cause of avenging wrong or of driving off enemies.
35bfr. [Nonius, 498M] But our people, by defending its allies, has now gained possession of all lands.
[Augustine, City of God, 19.21] Why, then, does God command man, the mind the body, reason the lust and the other vicious parts of the mind?
[Augustine, against Julian, 4.12.61] Do we not see that to every best man dominion has been given by nature herself, with the greatest advantage of the weak? Why, then, does God command man, the mind the body, reason the lust and anger and the other vicious parts of that same mind?
[Priscian, GL 2.399K] . . . in which I assent that an anxious and dangerous justice is not the part of the wise man.
[Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 5.18.4] Virtue plainly wills honour, nor is there any other reward of virtue . . . Which, however, she receives readily, and exacts not bitterly . . . What riches will you set before this man? what commands? what kingdoms? who reckons those things human, and judges his own goods divine . . . But if either all together, ungrateful, or many, envious, or powerful enemies strip virtue of its rewards, then surely she delights herself with many consolations, and above all sustains herself by her own splendour.
. . . in Asia Tiberius Gracchus persevered toward the citizens, but neglected the rights and treaties of the allies and of the Latin name. And if this habit and licence shall begin to flow more widely, and shall lead over our empire from right to force, so that those who hitherto obey us of their own will are held by terror—even though for us, who are of that age, the watch is nearly over, yet I am anxious concerning our posterity and concerning that immortality of the commonwealth, which could be perpetual, if it were lived by the institutions and manners of the fathers.
[Nonius, 262M] . . . that two things were wanting to him, that he might speak the less before the crowd and in the forum: confidence and voice . . .
. . . to bring back. Therefore who would call that the affair of a people—that is, the commonwealth—when all were oppressed by the cruelty of one man, and there was no single bond of right, nor agreement nor fellowship of the gathering, which is a people? And the same thing at Syracuse. That splendid city, which Timaeus calls the greatest of Greek cities and the fairest of all—its citadel worth seeing, its harbours flowing in even to the bosom of the town and to the foundations of the city, broad streets, porticoes, temples, walls—all these availed nothing the more, while Dionysius held it, to make it a commonwealth; for nothing belonged to the people, and the people itself belonged to one man. Therefore where there is a tyrant, there one must say there is, not a faulty commonwealth, as I said yesterday, but, as reason now compels, plainly no commonwealth at all.
"Splendidly indeed you speak," said Laelius; "for I now see whither your discourse tends." Scipio: "You see then that not even that which is wholly in the power of a faction can truly be called a commonwealth." Laelius: "So I plainly judge." Scipio: "And most rightly indeed you judge; for what was then the affair of the Athenians, when, after that great Peloponnesian War, those thirty men presided most unjustly over the city? Did the ancient glory of the state, or the splendid aspect of the town, or the theatre, the gymnasia, the porticoes, or the noble Propylaea, or the citadel, or the admirable works of Phidias, or that magnificent Piraeus, make a commonwealth? By no means," said Laelius, "since indeed it was not the affair of the people." Scipio: "What? When the decemvirs were at Rome without appeal, in that third year, when liberty itself had lost its sureties?" Laelius: "It was no affair of the people; nay rather, the people acted to recover its own affair."
Scipio: "I come now to that third kind, in which perhaps there will seem to be difficulties. When things are said to be done through the people, and all things to be in the power of the people, when the multitude exacts punishment from whomever it will, when they act, snatch, hold, scatter what they will—can you then, Laelius, deny that that is the commonwealth? when all things belong to the people, since indeed we wish the commonwealth to be the affair of a people." Then Laelius: "And there is no commonwealth that I should more quickly deny to be one, than that which is wholly. . . of the people. . . it has not pleased us that there was a commonwealth at Syracuse, nor at Agrigentum, nor at Athens, when there were tyrants, nor here, when there were decemvirs; nor do I see why the name of commonwealth should appear any more in the domination of a multitude—because, first, there is for me no people, as you most excellently defined it, Scipio, save one that is held together by an agreement upon law; but that gathering is as much a tyrant as if it were one man, this the fouler in that there is nothing more monstrous than that beast which counterfeits the appearance and name of a people. Nor indeed is it fitting that—since by the laws the goods of madmen are in the power of their kinsmen, because their . . .
. . . why that should be a commonwealth and the affair of a people which has been said of kingship. "And much more so," said Mummius; "for upon a king rather falls the likeness of a master, since he is one; but the commonwealth in which several good men shall hold power, nothing can be happier than that. But yet I prefer even a kingdom to a free people; for that remains to you, the third kind of the most faulty commonwealth."
Here Scipio: "I recognize," he said, "that habit of yours, Spurius, averse from the cause of the people; and although it can be borne more mildly than you are wont to bear it, yet I assent that of these three kinds none is less to be approved. But this I do not assent to you, that the best men are to be preferred to a king; for if it is wisdom that governs the commonwealth, what, pray, does it matter whether this be in one man or in several? But we are deceived by a certain error in arguing thus; for when the term 'best men' is used, nothing can seem more excellent—for what better can be conceived than the best?—but when mention is made of a king, there occurs to the mind even an unjust king. But we say nothing now of an unjust king, since we inquire about the royal commonwealth itself. Wherefore think of Romulus, or Pompilius, or Tullius as king; perhaps you will not so much repent of that commonwealth."
Manilius: "What praise, then, do you leave to the popular commonwealth?" Scipio: Then he: "What? To you, pray, Spurius, do the Rhodians—among whom we lately were together—seem to have no commonwealth at all?" Manilius: "To me indeed they do seem to have one, and by no means to be blamed." Scipio: "You say rightly; but, if you remember, all the same men were then now of the plebs, now senators, and they had their alternations, in which months they should discharge the popular function, in which the senatorial; and in both places they received a fee; and in the theatre and in the senate-house the same men judged capital cases and all the rest; so much could the multitude, and so much was it worth, as the senate . . .
[Fragments]
[Nonius, 301M] There is, then, something turbulent in single men, which either exults with pleasure or is broken by distress.
[Nonius, 364M] But as they themselves . . . put their spirit to the test, they see what they think they will do.
[Nonius, 431M] The Carthaginians first, by their trafficking and their wares, imported into Greece avarice and ostentation and the insatiable cravings of all things.
[Scholiast on Juvenal, Satires 10.362] That Sardanapallus, far more deformed by his vices than by the very name.
[Priscian, GL 2.255K] . . . unless someone wishes to fashion Athos from the foundations into a monument. For what Athos or Olympus is so great?